I've Always Missed You, Mama
by MukunaMatata
Summary: First fanfic, about Leo before prophecy, and life during the foster homes. No hate, but constructive criticism is always welcome. All about Spicy McShizzle, as the Gods Intended. I've now added the rest of them, along with Nico and Reyna, but Percy will not show up until the end. Expect many god cameos and hidden references. Please review, and remember I'm new at this.
1. Leo's First Home

**Leo missed his mom more than ever.**

It had been 6 months ever since she died, and ever since, nothing had ever been the same. He may have only been 9 years old, but he was pretty sure no child deserved to hurt this much.

He was in his first foster home, after living with Aunt Rosa had went pretty badly (he still didn't understand why she hated him so much). So far, it sucked. The mom was a vegan (where eating vegetables took new heights), the dad obviously had a thing against 9 year olds (or maybe Mexicans), and all the kids had been his age at least 5 years ago (as if the rite of passage to teenagerdom comes with a built in pamphlet inside their brains called _How to Become a Sultry, Child-Hating Teenager in 5 Easy Steps_), so they treated him as the human push pin. It was the last straw when 'Leo' burned down the tofu shelf. It went a little like this.

_Mrs Matthews: Now, eat your tofu, Leo._

_Leo: I don't wanna eat that! It looks like flattened insulation._

_Mr Matthews: Now Leo, eat your tofu, it's healthy._

_Leo: (smirks) That's rich coming from the man whose 'late-night business' includes a 9:00 trip to TGIF, Thank God It's Food!_

_Mrs Matthews: Harold!_

_Mr Matthews: (blustering) Leo, h-h-how could you?! That was our little secret! I brought you home a prime rib last week!_

_Mrs Matthews: (scowling) So that's why for the first time I didn't catch you __sneaking a late night trip to McDonalds or Chipotle! I just finally thought you made it, but no, my husband brought you a slab of the same animal you watched on Back In The Barnyard this morning! How would Otis feel if you had eaten a piece of Abby?!_

_Leo: (looking dead in the eye): He'd say 'Chew cud', then 'Milk me'._

_Mr Matthews: (bangs on table) ENOUGH! We will discuss this in the morning. Until then, GOOD NIGHT! (muttering to himself) Goodness Gracious, felt like I was in the middle of a__** FOSTERS **__marathon._

_Mrs Matthews: Fine, but let me tell you boy, until you grow up and leave this house, you will eat soo much vegetables you'll be a spokes campaign for Weight Watchers! You'll spend your weekends marking coupon books for tofu sales!You just wait and see. (Turning around and stomping up the stairs) Harold, get back here!_

_So that's the last conversation he had with his first pair of foster parents, until he was woken up the next morning as his 'mom' tore his butt up with a frying pan all Rapunzel-style, yelling "What'd you do to our tofu you filthy boy?! What'd you do?! While Leo had never been officially blamed, there were two nine-year-old boy handprints seared into the cupboard, just like the table with Tia Callida. That was the first, but not the last._

So that was Leo's life in a nutshell by nine years old.


	2. The Lees

**The next house wasn't much better.**

"Drink toilet water, Mario!", the older 'brothers' said as Leo dunked his head into the porcelain throne _once again_. He wondered when his new family would stop beating him up every time his 'parents' turned around, but he wasn't complaining about the parents. They were pretty cool, unlike the rest of them. The whole 3 weeks he was there was like a demon-based parody of _Cheaper by the Dozen. _Still, anyone was better than Aunt Rosa.

The eldest boy, Marcus, was dunking his head into toilet water, the cool liquid drenching his face and hair. Leo gagged when a piece of poop from last night floated into his, sadly, _open, _mouth, and even more distraught when he tasted corn. _Holy Hephaestus", _Leo thought to himself,_ we had corn for dinner last week! What are these people plugging up their butts? Their manners? _The sassy remark made the ten-year-old laugh for the first time since coming to the Lee's house. _Lee,_ Leo thought, _how did they not think of a better name? I see people with great last names like Mukuna or like that, but Lee is what they came up with? The apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree!_ Leo suddenly had an idea, which would either get him beat up a thousand times over and over, or possibly get his head out of the toilet bowl. _Well, worth a try._ "Hey freaks of nature!"

His brothers looked at him with a combination of disgust, because they couldn't imagine what he had to say was important enough to be said to them, and awe, because he had enough nerve to interrupt a Lee bashing. Nevertheless, unless he recited the whole Bohemian Rhapsody by heart, Leo was dead. So his great idea was to joke around.

"Hey, Marcus!", Leo gurgled, "Is it really true that you nibbled a girl's neck last night?"

Marcus grabbed his hair and yanked it up forcefully, breathing into Leo's nose. He could smell this morning's tuna sandwich. "Yeah", Marcus shot back, "she liked it, so what?"

Leo smirked. "You were slobbering. Her name's Pamela, not _Hamela_".

Everyone else snickered, but Marcus only gave a small smile. Leo decided he would have to give it a little oomph. So he tried a rare gem. Upon reevaluating it, he tried something else;

"Am I the only person you stuff into your poop encrusted toilet", said Leo, while mentally cursing himself, and hoping the ocelots had the humor of Aunt Rosa.

"Uh, yeah dude", said Jacob, the second oldest one, with a smirk. "Who else is as pathetic as you, Mario?"

"Do you promise never to forget me, Jacob?"

"Honestly Leo, I pray that I never encounter one of you again, albeit that I'm allowed to forget you. I doubt I'll be allowed to forget. Nevertheless, I won't forget you for the duration of this joke. About that joke, hurry up!

Leo was glad Jacob made that comment. _Good thing it's working, I reeled him in. How do you make a nerd laugh? With a stupid comment. It works in math class, why not now? Now, what is the stupidest joke genre known to man?_

"Knock knock", said Leo to Jacob, praying that the joke worked.

"Who's there?", asked Jacob in annoyance.

Leo broke into a wide grin. "Hey, you forgot me already!"

The Lee boys broke into laughter. Sure the joke wasn't that funny, but funny enough. Which gave Leo hope.

"Just call me Spicy McShizzle".

Jacob chuckled. "Sure, why not." He whispered to Marcus, "That'll get old fast."

So after that the Lees and the Valdez lived in perfect harmony. Or at least close enough.

In total, this house was probably the best one he ever lived in. He wasn't kicked out, but he ran away. It was because Mr. and Mrs. Lee asked Leo to call them 'Mom'. He wasn't ready, so he left, and got as far away as Austin, before getting caught again.

**Sorry, kinda new to this. Please leave reviews, and visit my profile to answer a poll. I'm questioning whether or not I should leave this to JUST Leo, or add the rest of the Seven including Nico and Reyna, excluding Percy, because his mother Sally is amazing. Please leave a review, or again, check out my poll on my profile page. Thanks!**


	3. Leo Meets Two Random Hippies off I-35

_Phil and Junebug are mine_. _Leo belongs to Rick Riordan. Technically_.

_Leo belongs to Rick Riordan. Technically_.

_I try not to think. It inferes with being nuts._

_-Leo Valdez_

**Being on the road is getting increasingly difficult for 11-year olds.**

These were Leo's thoughts as he stood at the side of the road with his thumb up in the air. He guessed that drivers were incredibly scared of Latino preteens with Santa elvish characteristics, as if he was going to simultaneously put coal in their stockings and Legos under their feet. The stupidity of them, Leo mused, the curses and superstitions they'd say and believe, like _'You're cursed with fire for all your days'_, and _'I hope your eye twitches!'_ Texans.

A car finally pulled up to Leo, and he kinda hoped it would turn back. It was a family van, dark red with a gold bottom. That was normal, but the inside was creepy. It had a bunch of flower prints and hippie signs. The entire top was a dark blue backdrop with pasted, stark white flowers and dream catchers. Daisies decorated the headrests, there were Ancient Greek letters scratched into every surface, and the trunk was filled with Ancient Greek letters. How he knew, Leo had no idea. But none of that was as weird as the fact that tmhe woman looked just like a blond version of Tia Callida and her husband.

"Hi, hon," the Tia look-alike said. "What's your name?" Her voice was dripping with sickening enthusiasm. He recognized that voice. It was on every other "mom" and social worker's tongue before they gave him away to complete strangers.

"Uh...Thomas," Leo said. He wasn't about to give his name away to hippie weirdos. Although something told him he might learn to love these freaks. At least the blond.

"Kay...Thomas!," chirped the blond. The man, however, had a surly look, and flickers of..._wait, was that lightning_...in his beard. He wondered if the man was an inventor, if so, he probably invented the phrase, 'If looks could kill."

"Ok…Thomas," he said, "We are Phil and Junebug. Rules: 1) This wasn't my idea, so no, I won't help you when you realize what I'm talking about. 2) I will not tell you what I'm talking about, but know that I blame my wife. 3) While she's an idiot, she's my wife, so I'll go along with this. "For now'" he added to Junebug. "And 3) You're staying with us for a year. Got it?"

"Do I really have a choice?," asked Leo.

"No," said Phil. "Get in!"

So that was that. Leo had a family.

**So, I wonder who Phil and Junebug are? Leave comments below!**


	4. Phil and Junebug: Undercover Gods (DUH)

Phil and Junebug were the weirdest parents Leo had ever had. And the best.

They had traveled the world purely for fun. Every national monument knew, and more no one really knew, had been visited. The Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China (Leo felt a pang of humor at that one), even the big Coffee pot of Seattle (the bottle of cream and jar of sugar was nearby). And the Lotus Casino. That one was strange. At each landmark he had been asked by June to put his hand on the wall and tell her how it felt. This may sound weird, but it was like he could _feel_ the gears turning on his hand. Leo had always hated magic and curses, machines made more sense to him. That's how he knew the Lotus Casino was evil. It radiated death.

And the engineering fairs and shows. Oh the glory.

Then there were the fires.

Phil and Junebug were obsessed with camping. Usually he knew where they camped, but they seemed to be on some mountain. They also always had to have a fire. Yet they never had matches. Or gasoline. Yet Leo would always be told to start a fire.

"Come on, Thomas," crooned Junebug "Light the campfire. You know you know how to warm up these old bones!"

"Yeah, Thomas," smirked Phil as he came to sit by Junebug. The two exchanged a small scowl, but Leo wasn't sure if he had seen it correctly. Then again, it seemed as if there had been '_trouble in paradise' _lately. '_Wonder why?'_ Leo couldn't tell, but it had something to do with him. Nevertheless, here was Leo, being asked to make a fire. Out of sheer force of will.

"Uh, sure," sputtered Leo. "I'll just go get a match for this fire-"

"No!" This came from June. "I mean, surely you must have some idea of how to start a fire independently. Perhaps you feel a stirring in your gut-"

"No." This time, it was Leo. "I hate fire. Forever and always."

June pursed her lips in a frown. "Fine."

So she lit a fire, but June looked disappointed. Which made Leo feel worse than he smelled (Phil and June didn't believe in bathing). He hated disappointing her.

-CHANGE IN P.O.V-

Hera put wet wood over the fire, and then went to the tent she and Zeus were sharing. For now anyway.

Zeus scowled when she came in. "Your plan is flawed. He can't even use his gift."

Hera felt a blush creep onto her cheeks, but she pushed it down. "He will be my hero. As Jason Grace is my champion."

"Some hero. He's your grandson."

"_Our_ grandson. Jason's purely yours."

"Oh, baby, don't do this again," Zeus pleaded as Hera huffed and turned to face the wall. "Look, let's talk about the plan, what's the plan?"

Hera sighed, but turned back around. "Because Leo is having such a hard time using, or even discovering his powers, we are going to help him. When he learns, we are going to drop him back into the real world, he'll forget all about us and his powers, but unconsciously he'll feel something when he hears the word 'fire'. Then, when the prophecy comes to pass, he'll be prepared.

Zeus sighed. "No demigod has had to face this before. We didn't. And the greatest demigods of all time, Dionysus and Heracles, couldn't even help us. How can Leo Valdez, Jason Grace, and the rest of them possibly do what the greatest couldn't?"

Hera ran a hand through her hair. She locked eyes with Zeus.

"Then they'll become the greatest."

**Sorry that it's taking me so long. Please review!**

**And expect a new character next ;-)**

**MukunaMatata**


	5. Frank Gets a Surprise

**So I've finally extended the story past Leo. I feel that Frank has so much potential as a fanfic character. Also I'm starting a Frazel story soon, so please check that out to.**

**And see what three gods make cameos in this chapter.**

Frank was sitting by the windowsill, watching the rain fall down. It rained a lot in Ontario, but this rain seemed-_troubled. _There were two fat raindrops on the window, so Frank spent the next hour putting bets against them. If the first one won, he'd clean his room. Tie,he'd talk to Grandmother willingly.

If the second one won, his mom would come back.

Frank lived in a huge mountain, with white columns, long windows with black curtains, and stainless, polished wooden floors.

Floors his Grandmother was walking down now, every click-clack taking him closer to absolute despair.

Grandmother Zhang poked her head into the door. "Fai. Get up, someone's here to see you." While she usually screamed orders from the living room, today she seemed-_subdued._ As if there was someone here who he wouldn't want to see.

Frank walked to the door where a lieutenant was waiting. He had dark brown eyes flecked with red, knife scars, a buzzcut, and many medals. But all of these details faded away as the man brought out a small, white box.

The color drained from Frank's face. "No."

The lieutenant humbly bowed his head down farther. "Your mother was killed in battle. She was saving falling soldiers from gunfire."

"No, it can't be." Frank was holding and shaking his head in distress. "No, my mom can't be dead!"

The lieutenant lifted his head to a face full of desperate fear. His eyes pulsed with guilt, but he managed to get the next words out:

"We at the Canadian Military would like to thank you for you mother's service-"

But it didn't matter. Frank was gone.

Grandmother Zhang put a hand on the commander's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I know you loved her, but you're being too hard on yourself. You couldn't have saved her."She considered something for a minute, and then asked, "Could you?"

The lieutenant sighed. "No."

"But it was still too soon."

Frank was curled up on his bed sobbing in pure agony. He hadn't seen his mom in six years. Now he never will again.

His sob fest was interrupted by two sharp raps on the door. Grandmother's signal.

"Go away Grandmother, I'm not in the mood."

"You're lucky you're mom just died, or else it would've been you." Grandmother Zhang slid the door closed as she went to sit by Frank. "You can't be the only one sad. She was my daughter. She came out of me."

"I came out of her. What's your point?"

"That we can cry together, Fai."

Frank was shocked. His grandmother had never expressed a want, or even capability, of being nice. In any other situation, she would've yelled at him to get over himself. Nevertheless, he wasn't complaining, so he moved over so Grandmother could get in. He breathed in the scent of allspice as they sat, hugging his grandmother like she was the last person he had left. Which she was. His dad had died in Afghanistan before he was born.

After five minutes of hugging, Grandmother Zhang got up.

"Oh, Fai," Grandmother Zhang said wearily as she shook Frank away. "I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself. Come on, let's go eat moon cakes."

"No," said, or better yet-muffled Frank from below 3 feet of blankets.

"Fai, get up. We need to talk now," Grandmother Zhang huffed as she ripped off blankets in vain. Frank had already crept out the door.

Frank slid down the banister to the door, where the plain, white box was still waiting. Frank tiptoed over, as if the box contained an alternate reality he couldn't control.

Much like this one.

"No,"he thought. "She died, open the dang box!"

Frank removed the lid, and inside he saw letters. Letters all written to him, all from his mom. They went from May 2000 to April 2006, a month ago. The last one read:

_Frank,_

_These enemies fight like a swarm of bees. Luckily, so do I. I'm coming home for a few months starting next week. Hold on tight, and I love you._

_Mama_

_Emily Zhang_

Frank's eyes stung with tears. '_I love you," _she had said. '_I'm coming back home next week."_ A dream now ruined.

"I bet Fate is having a really good laugh right now."

Suddenly Frank was seized with a vision of three old women cackling. "Wonder why?" Frank wondered.

"Fai," said Grandmother Zhang as Frank turned around. She walked up to him and knelt on the cold floor. When Frank saw her eyes, he immediately knew that she had been crying. He felt ashamed.

"Fai, we need to get a hold of ourselves, or else we could drown ourselves in sorrow."

"Good, I can see Mom again."

"Fai!" Grandmother Zhang lightly swatted Frank. "You mustn't think such things. Your mother died to protect you. Honor the sacrifice."

Frank frowned. "I don't want to honor a sacrifice, I just want my mom back."

Grandmother Zhang smiled, but it was forced. "Fai, I know that you're feeling sad, I am too, but you need to remember-"

Frank sat up with a crazed look in his eyes. "What do you mean remember?! She's my mom, all I need to _remember_ is that she's _dead_. My mother is _dead."_

Something in Grandmother Zhang's tightly woven exterior must have cracked, because she started shaking him. "What about me?! She was my daughter! I loved her too!"

The moment was over as soon as it had started. Grandmother Zhang smoothed her outfit and hair down as she apologized.

"I'm sorry Fai. I don't know what had gotten into me. As I said, we must fight in her honor. She died for us in ways we don't know yet. While I hope it doesn't come to that, we must be prepared to do the same. You, Fai, will face greater challenges, but will reap greater rewards and joy."

Frank simply nodded, completely numb to everything until he saw a tear slide down Grandmother Zhang's cheek.

"Oh, and I'm sorry too Grandmother. I should've been more sensitive to your feelings."

Grandmother Zhang gave a smile. "Thank you, but now, go do something, shoot your arrows. Children and Grandmothers shouldn't talk like this."

Frank gave a small smile, then ran off. Grandmother Zhang hoisted herself up to hang the mourning curtains, when she heard a faint pop. There was a black rose stapled to a note, which read:

She's in Elysium, trying for rebirth

All is well

He WILL be a hero

And will bring your family honor

~A friend

P.S. She misses and loves you both

Grandmother Zhang glared at the heavens.

"I may have lost one child to your silly god games,

but this one will fight for his life."

**So now it's been expanded. I'm doing Annabeth after this, I have a really good idea for her. Please review!**

**MukunaMatata**


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